Charles Shelby Rooks, 76, an influential minister in the United Church of Christ and in the African-American religious community, died May 19 in a Norfolk, Virginia, hospital from complications following heart surgery

Christian Century, July 4, 2001

* Charles Shelby Rooks, 76, an influential minister in the United Church of Christ and in the African-American religious community, died May 19 in a Norfolk, Virginia, hospital from complications following heart surgery. Rooks served as executive vice president of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries from 1984 until his retirement in 1992.

As president of Chicago Theological Seminary from 1974 to 1984, he was the first African-American to lead a predominantly white theological school. Earlier he had headed the Fund for Theological Education in Princeton, New Jersey, and had been pastor of Lincoln Memorial Temple, United Church of Christ, in Washington, D.C.